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Isaiah 42:1-25

42** Here is my servant whom I use, my chosen in whom I take satisfaction: I have put my spirit on him; he shall bring out judgment for the nations.2 He will not cry out nor raise his voice nor let it be heard in the street;3 a cracked reed he will not break, a smoldering wick he will not put out. He will bring out judgment reliably:4* he will not smolder down nor crack till he sets up justice in the earth and commonwealths await his instructions.5 Says the Deity, Jehovah, creator and spreader of the skies, forger of the earth and its growths, giver of breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk over it:6* I Jehovah have called you in good faith and held your hand and kept you and given you for a people’s charter, for a light of nations,7 to open blind eyes, to bring prisoners out of lockup, inmates of the darkness out of jail;8 I am Jehovah, that is my name, and I will not give my glory to another and my praise to sculptures.9 The first things have come true, and I am telling new things: before they have started growth I let you hear of them.10 Sing a new song for Jehovah, from the end of the earth his praise, seafarers and all that fills the sea, strange countries and their inhabitants;11* let wilderness and its cities lift their voices, villages the Kedarites live in; let crag-dwellers shout, let them yodel from mountaintops;12 let them give glory to Jehovah and tell his praise in strange countries.13 Jehovah goes out like a champion, rouses his fierceness like a fighting man, cheers, yells, battles hardily with his enemies.14* I have been quiet since ancient times, keeping silence, holding myself in. Like a childbearing woman I will groan, gasp, and pant together.15* I will dry off mountains and hills and dry up their herbage, and make rivers into pools and dry pools out.16 And I will have blind men walk on a road they did not know, along paths they did not know I will take them; I will make a dark place into a patch of light before them and a tortuous piece into smooth going; these things I have done and not left them.17 Those that put confidence in statues fall back, admit their disappointment—those who say to bronzes “You are our gods!”18 Listen, deaf and dumb men; blind men, look to see.19* Who is blind but my servant, or so deaf and dumb as my messenger that I send? who is so blind as Meshullam and so deaf and dumb as Jehovah’s servant?20* It is a case of seeing much and not fixing attention on it, having ears open and not hearing.21 It was Jehovah’s pleasure for his righteousness’ sake to give a great and grand Code;22 but that is a people plundered and pillaged, all trapped in holes and hidden in jails; they have become plunder that there is nobody to rescue, pillage for which there is nobody to say “Give it back.”23 Who among you will give ear to this, listen and hear for afterward?24 Who gave Jacob up to pillage and Israel to plunderers? was it not Jehovah, against whom they had sinned? they not been willing to go his way nor listened to his instructions,25* and he poured out on them his hot anger and the force of war which has blazed round them and they do not know it, has burned spots on them and they pay no attention.